Progress Productions | Sweden | CD | 2020
White Door: The Great Awakening – SE – CD – [2020]
- Among The Mountains
- Resurrection
- Soundtrack Of Our Lives
- Lullaby
- Angel Of Tomorrow
- The Great Awakening
- Simply Magnificent
- Beautiful Girl
A few months ago, we were looking into the one and only [at that time] album by White Door; a shimmering example of synthpop that came soaring out of the dying embers of a Prog band named Grace. Their one album was a little exquisite, if obscure, and was only issued on CD by Cherry Red in 2009. It’s now an OOP rarity. But we have the chance to hear them anew on April 17th of 2020!
All three original members [Mac Austin, Harry + John Davies] were reuiited along with fourth member/producer Johan Baeckström of Daily Planet, a Swedish I’d not heard of but were highly recommended for any fans of Vince Clarke! Apparently, three years ago on the Daily Planet album “Play, Rewind, Repeat” Baeckström enlisted vocalist Mac Austin to lend his dignified voice to “Heaven Opened,” a track that was White Door in all but name as we can hear below.
From this seed grew the new White Door album and judging from the pre-release single of “Among The Mountains,” it’s a seamless fit with their debut album of <whistles> 37 years ago. They even still use Harry Davies flute in the instrumentation! Listen and believe below.
Swedish label Progress Productions will be releasing the eight track album on CD and LP next month and the CD is $17.00 now, but judging from the Cherry Red “Windows” experience, it’ll be trading hands in the future for a lot more than that. The LP will cost more, and if I were a guy who invested in things, maybe I’d buy one to keep around for a rainy day. The 180g edition is in a pressing of just 300 for $27.00. of course, we must factor in shipping from Sweden for both of these physical goods. Immaterial fans who just want MP3/FLAC/WAV can deal directly with the bands Bandcamp store for, uh, 75 Swedish Kroner. Me? I’m a physical guy. That CD has my name on it if I can dare to spend money on music this year. If you are too, hit that button and do the deed.
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Post-Punk Monk 
So great to have them back.
Like you,I have been following the gestation of this project for a long time.I will have to just enjoy the download though,as all of my income stopped a month ago so I have ZERO “entertainment budget” at the moment.
The song sounds like it could have come from the same era as the debut,which I am thrilled about of course.Ageless,timeless and gorgeous.
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Gavin – Don’t I know it. I always want to severely curtail my purchasing and with the prospect of my income crashing to a halt in a few weeks [if that] I am right there with you. I have to assume unemployment is coming like a freight train as America looks to be heading for a Depression. Which is annoying because I have been job hunting for the last few months and I had what I thought was a hot prospect a week ago but that’s likely tabled.
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I really like ‘Among The Mountains’ a lot, it’s bought and I’m so looking forward to getting the album. Is it just me but it seems ridiculous that the first White Door album isn’t available to purchase as even a download currently… what is there to be gained by not having music available to buy? There will be contractual reasons but the misty red tape of the music industry is embarrassing… I honestly just don’t get it!
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See That Glow – Welcome to the comments! I concur that buying music, that archaic notion, should not be so downright difficult in the 21st century. But licenses for DL vs. physical copy can vary widely. Blame the lawyers! What’s worse, they have been in control of record companies for two generatuions now. To our detriment.
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Cheers Monk! I’m too of the age when waiting 6 to 8 weeks (in the good old days!) for a new single or album to be released was the norm and it was so very exciting to go to a record shop and buy something on the day it came out. But I also appreciate hearing something new now and it’s 99.9% available to buy straight away. But the madness of decades old music not been available to buy (unless the artist wasn’t happy with it) is beyond comprehension or logic. Hey ho… but the grand scheme of things/life at the moment it’s no big thing of course!
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Pre-ordered CD via link. Thanks, Monk. 30+ years of collecting of synth-pop and I never heard of this band until you posted a few months ago.
I agree it’s strange the first album is still so rare. Who knows why you can’t just buy it on mp3… however, I want physical media, too. Following Monk’s post, I tracked down the cassette version of Windows online, and it’s just a matter of time before I plonk down a crazy amount of money for the 2009 reissue CD.
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